Schnuck Markets Inc. found itself in a bit of a pickle recently when it learned that its insurance company is refusing to cover losses from a data breach at the regional grocery store chain that compromised up to 2.4 million debit and credit cards. The Schnucks incident and other recent …

By Jim Daly Following a summer of uncertainty over whether millions of uninsured consumers would be unable to buy medical insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) because they didn’t have a checking account, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week issued a rule that requires …

By Jim Daly Plenty of Americans are still getting free checking, but not as many as last year, according to new findings from the American Bankers Association. The Washington, D.C.-based trade group’s latest annual consumer survey says 55% of bank customers spend nothing each month for banking services and ATM …

The increasing popularity of depositing checks via mobile devices could end up saving financial institutions offering the service a good deal of money, according to a recent study. But, while cost savings from mobile check capture are real, there are offsetting factors, says an expert not connected with the study. …

Findings from an overlooked Federal Reserve Board report from last March portend that the possible cuts in debit card interchange as a result of a major court decision last month could be even bigger than many observers initially thought. In the report, the Fed said that authorization, clearing, and settlement …

PayPal Inc.’s ambitious plan to achieve what its parent company’s chief executive calls “ubiquity” in in-store acceptance took a key step forward this week when news emerged that Mercury Payment Systems has become the first independent sales organization to market PayPal’s mobile wallet to small brick-and-mortar merchants. Durango, Colo.-based Mercury, …

By Jim Daly The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it would appeal the July 31 decision by a federal judge overturning the board’s rule implementing the Durbin Amendment, the section of 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act that regulates debit cards. The news came from Scott Alvarez, the Fed’s general counsel, at a …

The acquiring business, already fraught with rivalry, became even more competitive on Wednesday with an announcement from daily-deals giant Groupon Inc. that it will supply traditional point of sale terminals to merchants as part of a new initiative under its payments division. The Chicago-based company, which last year jumped into …

A judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday gave the Federal Reserve Board a week to indicate its position about a possible interim rule for implementing the Durbin Amendment, the part of 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act that regulates debit cards, after ruling late last month that the Fed’s current regulations do not …

By Jim Daly B is back. That is, what the Federal Reserve Board back in 2011 dubbed “Alternative B” for implementing the transaction-routing requirements in the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin Amendment. Alternative B would have required each debit card to provide the merchant access to at least two signature and two …